Posted
by
timothy
on Monday December 30, 2013 @04:22AM
from the it's-all-part-of-cointelpro dept.

drmofe writes "Two parents in New Zealand have orchestrated the removal of a school's Wi-Fi system. They have expressed the concerns that Wi-Fi causes cancer and other health issues. The child of one of these parents died recently from brain cancer. This appears to be an emotional area and one where decisions appear to be being made without evidence. The NZ Ministry of Education provides guidelines for the safe use of Wi-Fi in schools and the school itself was operating within those guidelines."

WIFi is non-ionising radiation and so has similar issues to other radiation using similar frequencies such as mobile telephones and microwave ovens. These produce heating effects. WiFi is not focused, so any impact should be very small and perhaps not measurable.

I am not aware of any health studies specifically on WiFi. There have been studies on mobile phones which has shown that while the phone is in use and held next to the head, there is small but measurable heating effect on human tissue. My guess is that it has less impact than standing at right angles to the Sun so one side of the head gets warmer faster than the other. Even then, these studies have produced no evidence that this has any health impact, positive or negative:

A large body of research exists, both epidemiological and experimental, in non-human animals and in humans, of which the majority shows no definite causative relationship between exposure to mobile phones and harmful biological effects in humans.And per Dr. Michael Clark of the HPA, WiFi is a fraction of the energy of a cell phone:

“When we have conducted measurements in schools, typical exposures from wi-fi are around 20 millionths of the international guideline levels of exposure to radiation. As a comparison, a child on a mobile phone receives up to 50 per cent of guideline levels. So a year sitting in a classroom near a wireless network is roughly equivalent to 20 minutes on a mobile. If wi-fi should be taken out of schools, then the mobile phone network should be shut down, too — and FM radio and TV, as the strength of their signals is similar to that from wi-fi in classrooms.”The Sun does emit ionising radiation (ultra violet) and that has significant health effects such as sunburn, pigmentation changes and Vitamin D production. WiFi's impact, if anything, is nothing like this.

Fun fact: Kiwi student loans never gain interest and have no late fees. There's almost no point in paying them back...except if you want to leave the country. If you move to Australia, the US or any other country to work, you have to start paying off those loans and they gain interest.

There are only 4 million people here. The entire population of Melbourne (or Sydney) is this entire country.

Fun fact: Kiwi student loans never gain interest and have no late fees. There's almost no point in paying them back...except if you want to leave the country.

If you want to leave the country and come back.

The NZ government reached out to some other, friendly, governments such as UK, Canada about tracking down student loan absconders. The response of these 'friendly countries' was: "We don't bother tracking down our overseas debtors, why should we help you track down yours?"

well believe either that page or the one saying that we all have cancer..

Besides, if they didn't ban mobile phones I really, really don't see the point in banning wifi.

Blaming wifi or cell phones is easy. Actually digging around and finding the true cause of the cancer is hard. Besides, you might discover the cause was environmental, say, the coating on some cookware, or contaminants in food, drink, laundry detergent, whatever. And discovering a household product triggered a cancer is actionable. Best blame it on the wifi and shift the attention of the pitchforks and torches brigade.

Blaming wifi or cell phones is easy. Actually digging around and finding the true cause of the cancer is hard.

It would be finding the cause of a specific cancer. Since that would be a combination of both how a cell malfunction and how it got missed by the immune system.

Besides, you might discover the cause was environmental, say, the coating on some cookware, or contaminants in food, drink, laundry detergent, whatever. And discovering a household product triggered a cancer is actionable.

Blaming wifi or cell phones is easy. Actually digging around and finding the true cause of the cancer is hard. Besides, you might discover the cause was environmental, say, the coating on some cookware, or contaminants in food, drink, laundry detergent, whatever. And discovering a household product triggered a cancer is actionable. Best blame it on the wifi and shift the attention of the pitchforks and torches brigade.

The IEEE Spectrum once had a big news story looking at the scientific evidence on the health effects of electromagnetic fields from power lines.

First question: How much EMF is there in the environment, and where is it coming from? There were studies that measured the EMF in households near power lines and away from power lines.

The strongest sources of EMF were food blenders, electric razors, and hair dryers. They were much stronger than power lines. And the ordinary 120v ac circuits in households were stron

In the early 1970's I worked in a machine shop. I was exposed to hand-soaking kerosene at one station, which was being used as a cheap cutting/ drilling oil. I developed small wart-like bumps. At a medical library I looked up if kerosene was carcinogenic. One book stated as a fact, that all petroleum distillates are. Another book stated as a fact that it was not, and that the whole issue of chemical carcinogenesis was 'iffy,' or unsettled. Guess which book was written by a chemical industry affiliated group

In the early 1970's I worked in a machine shop. I was exposed to hand-soaking kerosene at one station, which was being used as a cheap cutting/ drilling oil. I developed small wart-like bumps. At a medical library I looked up if kerosene was carcinogenic. One book stated as a fact, that all petroleum distillates are. Another book stated as a fact that it was not, and that the whole issue of chemical carcinogenesis was 'iffy,' or unsettled. Guess which book was written by a chemical industry affiliated group?

But, Wifi causing cancer? I will believe if given a pile of proof.

About that time I was writing for an environmental magazine. Every time the EPA or OSHA or somebody would ban a compound because it had evidence of toxicity, the users would come up with a new chemical without evidence of toxicity. Or we'd have to figure out what to do with water that was contaminated by dioxins and stuff.

I used to go to the library, and interview scientists (on both sides) and ask them, "How do you know this chemical is safe? How do you know it's dangerous? Where's the evidence?"

For the record, the sun's heating and radio wave heating would work differently. The sun heats the surface. The sun wouldn't do a particularly good job of heating the brain. The scalp would heat up, but then blood does a pretty good job of distributing that heat around, and the skull would be a decent insulator. Radio waves would penetrate into the brain and heat it directly.

Furthermore, there is at least one study showing that glucose metabolism in the brain increases in the presence of cell phone radiation.

Having said all of that, there's pretty much no way that either cell phones or WiFi are causing brain cancer. We've been engaged in a natural experiment of the effect of these forms of radiation. Both WiFi and cell phone usage have gone from "doesn't exist" to "ubiquitous" in the course of the last couple decades. We're not seeing an increase in any cancer rate that would show a correlation (let alone causation) with the rather dramatic increase in exposure to such radiation.

These parents want someone/something to blame for their child's death. It's very much that simple.

Radio waves don't just get absorbed when passing by some matter, they have to be of the right energy.

Water will absorb an extremely wide band. Contrary to popular belief, 2.5GHz is NOT a special resonant frequency for the water molecule, pretty much any cell phone band would work fine for microwave ovens. 2.5GHz was picked for engineering reasons, not out of physical necessity.

It depends on how the antennas are aimed. They are directional after all. For example, you talk about an "old school" microwave long distance relay -- how likely is it that this will be aimed at you, the ground, etc. It is aimed, as tightly as possible, at the next relay tower.
To the direct south of me, just five houses away, I've measured levels of 24,000 microwatts per meter squared (on the sidewalk) -- one-third of the reading directly in front of a working microwave oven. Move ten feet (or one foo

Wi-Fi may not cause cancer, but it does cause anxiety, depression, fits of rage, convulsions and skin conditions when it isnt working properly.Left on its own it draws electricity, war drivers and stupid questions.Something should be done...

Good post!! But really no need to post it here you need to fax this (oh wait that may also cause cancer)

That thermal FAX paper also contains massive amounts of oestrogen imitators [google.com] that will make you sterile and grow massive moobs. Watch out for those next time you touch a till receipt in a shop...!

It surprises me that it wasn't here in the US, but I'm waiting for it after this!!!
By the way (sarcasm) does New Zealand practice witch craft and believe in evil spirits? Because I thought they were beyond this type of voodoo!!!

You can find such people anywhere. Probably fewer in NZ than the USA. But only because of the difference in total population.

Oh gosh. This is not a very good precedent. I hope the children are taught that:-The radiation from WIFI is the same type as what comes from the Sun, which is essential for all life on earth.-We all emit radiation.

"Naturally occurring potassium is composed of three isotopes, one of which, 40K, is radioactive. Traces (0.012%) of this isotope is found in all potassium making it the most common radioactive element in the human body and in many biological materials, as well as in common building materials such as concrete."

(Wikipedia)

Gee, I hope the "parents" never find out. This is real radioactivity, not the wussy WiFi sort.

OTOH a banana panic would lower the price of one of my favorite fruits, so.... maybe somebody should warn them - they might be feeding their kids cancer-causing bananas right now in their ignorance!

Brazil nuts are also slightly radioactive. It is said that the complex root system of the plant generates the radioactivity.

It's unlikely that a plants root system, however complex, would be capable to nuclear reactions:) More likely the plant is concentrating naturally occuring radioactive elements. Biochemical systems can even be capable of selecting specific isotopes in some circumstances.

Oh gosh. This is not a very good precedent. I hope the children are taught that:
-The radiation from WIFI is the same type as what comes from the Sun, which is essential for all life on earth.
-We all emit radiation.

Thankfully, New Zealand isn't as 'backwater' and 'stupid' as the summary makes out.

From TFA:

Science Media Centre manager Peter Griffin says the death of Te Horo pupil Ethan Wyman from a brain tumour was a tragedy for his family, friends and school mates, but that to blame it on wi-fi is wrong.

Mr Griffin notes there is no evidence anywhere in peer-reviewed literature to suggest wi-fi signals pose an elevated risk of developing brain cancers.

And also:

In a statement, the Te Horo School board said it would take wi-fi out of junior classes and replace it with ethernet cable. However, wi-fi will not be removed from the senior school due to the wishes of parents who were surveyed on the issue.

The board says it shares the government's view that wi-fi is safe.

"We have sourced information from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and other submissions," the board's statement says.

"Based on this information the board believes that Wi-Fi does not pose a health risk to staff or students."

So it really is just a couple of dumb people putting pressure on the school and not indicative of the school's or Ministry of Education's thoughts at all.

Science Media Centre manager Peter Griffin says the death of Te Horo pupil Ethan Wyman from a brain tumour was a tragedy for his family, friends and school mates, but that to blame it on wi-fi is wrong.

Mr Griffin notes there is no evidence anywhere in peer-reviewed literature to suggest wi-fi signals pose an elevated risk of developing brain cancers.

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

You'd think that as a "scientist" Mr. Peter Griffin would have heard of the Stark-Einstein of photochemical equivalence, which tells you why WiFi is harmless. It was only one of the most studied pieces of science of the 20th century. Simply saying "we have no evidence" is a bit feeble.

You'd think that as a "scientist" Mr. Peter Griffin would have heard of the Stark-Einstein of photochemical equivalence, which tells you why WiFi is harmless. It was only one of the most studied pieces of science of the 20th century. Simply saying "we have no evidence" is a bit feeble.

You'd think for a press statement designed to appease worried parents, he doesn't need to talk science that is way about most of their heads - just tell them that it's okay.

What he really needs to to is to grow a pair and tell them not to be so fucking stupid (or words to that effect).

While tempting to do so in this kind of situation, I believe his approach was probably more effective. If you go around insulting people, they're less likely to take you seriously or listen to your opinion in the future.

Just think of the flamebait posts here on Slashdot. Occasionally they actually make a reasonable point, but they do it in such a way that most people aren't going to actually take the time to consider the point. It's a sorry state of affairs that 'how' we say something is important rather

It's a sorry state of affairs that 'how' we say something is important rather than only 'what' we say

Not really. The fact that it benefits an argument for it to be delivered clearly and politely isn't a bad thing unless you think a society in which such things are valued at all is a desirable outcome. What's sad is the people who occasionally have something worth sharing but are so completely unable to understand the need to be polite that they can't share it effectively.

What's sad is the people who occasionally have something worth sharing but are so completely unable to understand the need to be polite that they can't share it effectively.

This, I agree with. But only because of the limitations and requirements of the society we're in. I think it's sad that people are unable to effectively get their point across because it means that a potential for sharing information (and therefore increasing overall human knowledge) is lost.

The fact that it benefits an argument for it to be delivered clearly and politely isn't a bad thing unless you think a society in which such things are valued at all is a desirable outcome.

I'm taking a more abstract view here and imagining a world that we don't have. If no-one took offence at the style of how something is said and instead concentrated only on what was said, I believe that it would be a

I remember when cellphones base-stations were being maligned as being totally cancerific (that's a mother-of-schoolchildren science term), the response to a "there's no connection, all published results say so" claim by the big companies was "therefore they're not publishing the stuff that proves our claims - it's a coverup" from the anti-sciencoids (that's a worked-for-a-basestation-manufacturer mild insult).These mothers were unable to explain why the local Nokia R&D site had a massive base-station *r

You will never stop stupid people because stupid can't be fixed. Once that one realizes that correlation != causation, you have a chance. Until then, you can only introduce the facts and hope for the best. It's tough to stanch meme propagation when the propagators are teary-eyed mothers with dead children. But it has to be done.

I am all for wired ethernet. Probably get much better speeds that way.As to WiFi causing cancer? There is as much proof that WiFi causes cancer as their is proof photovoltaic panels and organic kale do.

Having Ethernet cables running all over the place is probably a greater measurable hazard than the WiFi. Tripping over a cable and injuring yourself Is a real danger, most workplaces are required to cover any cables running over the floor with heavy rubber mats or something like that. Or they could put in cable boxes into the floor of the rooms, very expensive, and very limiting to room geometry, which teachers Love to change!

Because then we eventually wind up with a long, LONG string of idiocies being perpetrated just to make someone "feel better".

No.

HELL FUCKING NO.

As sympathetic as I am to these people, no parent should have to outlive their child, there's no excuse for idiocy. NONE.

Issues like this need to be met with compassion and a firm resolve not to simply sway in the face of someone's excess of emotion. Especially when said excess of emotion leads to fuzzy thinking and unsupportable actions such as this.

If these people want to scream and call you a heartless monster, so be it.

The whole "give in just a little so we can all get along" mentality is part of what's wrong with just about EVERYTHING nowadays.There's this braindead notion that you can just compromise on EVERYTHING and it'll be okay.The problem is, it's NOT okay. And the only people who seemingly aren't willing to compromise are the ones who're making these logic-impaired demands on others.

Those parents who have lost a child must be heartbroken and grasping at anything to give some sort of meaning to their son's death.
Removing WiFi from junior classes may be senseless, but it gives these parents some sort of resolution and justification for what happened.
Just let them have this one; WiFi access isn't really necessary in junior classes anyway and they can switch it back on in a few years if needed.

I agree. I didn't mean to say the school was doing something 'bad' by taking away the WiFi. The parents are wrong, but they're also heartbroken and it's probably not going to cause any harm to remove the WiFi from these junior classes. I think the school did exactly the right thing - deny that WiFi is harmful (the truth), but take it away anyway in order to appease these people.

I think the school did exactly the right thing - deny that WiFi is harmful (the truth), but take it away anyway in order to appease these people.

Unless there were expensive consequences to leaving the WIFI there, for example a very expensive lawsuit, then no I don't think they did the right thing. Removing the WIFI is a tacit admission that concerns about WIFI are valid. All the parents, friends of parents, children etc all know that a school took WIFI out of classrooms because of concerns about cancer. I

I think it's a matter of weighing the statement they made vs the action they took. Perhaps it's a cultural difference between us, but as a New Zealander myself, I believe that most other New Zealanders would pay more attention to the fact that they said, "we don't think it's harmful" than the fact that they removed it.

It is fairly clear that they removed it in order to appease the complainers and not out of any perceived harm.

If I thought the risk of false belief was higher (i.e. people paying more attenti

I lost a grandfather, and he was a prolific reader. So I want to remove the scourge of books from schools because they must have caused his death. I realise this is nonsense and illogical, but just let me have this one. Another parent I know lost a mother to pencils. Let her have this one. And I heard about a guy whose son died from arithmetic. Let him have this one. Our school now doesn't give much education, but at least us parents feel better.

You can have every sympathy in the world for this father's loss. It's terrible for him. But he has no right to enforce what is nothing more than a manifestation of his grief on everyone else's education.

Perhaps you missed the "WiFi access isn't really necessary in junior classes anyway" part.You might not agree with that particular statement, but I think we can both agree that books, pencils and arithmetic are necessery.

If you can make a convincing case for WiFi access being necessary in junior classes, I'll gladly agree with you.Bringing forth strawman arguments (attacking something I did not say) can only damage a discussion.

Oh gosh. This is not a very good precedent. I hope the children are taught that:
-The radiation from WIFI is the same type as what comes from the Sun, which is essential for all life on earth.
-We all emit radiation.

As much as I think that these Kiwis are being a bit cracked (though, by the standards of grieving processes for dead children, I've certainly heard stupider strategies...), those are terrible 'educational' points.

They fall in the horrible zone of being nonfalse; while also eliding virtually all the important distinctions, and providing the poor sucker handed them basically no useful information on which to found decisions.

Is RF in the 2.4 and/or 5GHz band electromagnetic radiation, and thus in the sam

I more hope they'll also ban all other devices that emit radiation in similar wavelengths, such as mobile phones. And that would of course include the phone of the children of the parents that arranged for this ban.

Well, there are some concerns, such as:1. Only use UL or similarly listed Wifi equipment.2. If you must manipulate a ceiling mounted AP, use a ladder to reach it.3. Do not open mains powered wifi equipment unless you are qualified to do so.4. Do not attempt to hand anything off the wifi antennas.5. Do not remove, disassemble, or modify wifi equipment unless you are authorized to do so.

Speaking as a parent, a pamphlet called "Guidelines for the Safe Use of Wi-Fi in Schools" implies that there were schools with *UNSAFE* WiFi.
If WiFi can be unsafe, I don't want it in my school. My snowflake deserves a cancer-free life.

So if I sent you a pamphlet "Guidelines for the Safe Use of Food and Drink", you would let your snowflake die of hunger and thirst?

Because the kid is going to suffer for their parents stupidity no matter what you do. The tin foil hat limits the suffering to that one kid, though, rather than forcing an entire school of kids to suffer for the stupidity of one kids parents.

I'm really surprised someone hasn't started selling "faraday" hats to idiots yet. Just line it with a flexible metal mesh. Sell it for 1000% markup... er.. never mind. Ignore this post. And excuse me, I need to make some phone calls...

Do you still remember the garden cress [slashdot.org] experiment? Did that one ever get solved? Maybe there is something in the high-frequency radio waves that are detrimental to life, or only plants, or maybe only limited to garden cress. I'm not commenting on the kid's cancer case here, that's likely unrelated.

I hadn't heard of this experiment until now, interesting. The mainstream media reports I saw about it all seemed rather heavy on sensationalism and light on facts. I dug a little deeper and found this, which does a good job of pointing out the many flaws in the experiment: Does wifi stunt cress growth? [stackexchange.com].

This one [exploreb2b.com] also provides a summary of the points in the original.

The articles about this keep saying that "recent international research has shown there may be a link" without providing the source of that data! I can't find it anywhere, all the studies I can find show no evidence of a link. What the hell are these assholes talking about?! Why don't these journalists think this is an important piece of information to include with their articles?

I don't care if a bunch of nuts half a world away banned wifi for their elementary students. I but do care if they had a good reason to do it!

The articles about this keep saying that "recent international research has shown there may be a link" without providing the source of that data! I can't find it anywhere, all the studies I can find show no evidence of a link. What the hell are these assholes talking about?! Why don't these journalists think this is an important piece of information to include with their articles?

I don't care if a bunch of nuts half a world away banned wifi for their elementary students. I but do care if they had a good reason to do it!

Someone has falsely claimed that "recent international research has shown there may be a link", the press keep quoting it, and are of course unable to give a source since there is none.

Most world religions call for 'love of the neighbour as yourself'. However all who have children should hear 'love your neighbour as your child', as in practice parents are not good at being rational about when their children are concerned, with the result that we see children locked up in doors in reaction to 'stranger danger' - and thereby, overall, suffering more damage from lack of exercise and social interaction. This is merely an example of this wider irrationality... we can HOPE for reason to prevail

I wonder how much of the occasional health panic that springs up around wifi - and indeed other technologies - can actually be attributed to the high pitched hums that can be emitted by badly manufactured devices.

For instance, when I moved home last year, my new ISP - Virgin Media - provided me with a router when I signed up with them. Their "superhub" - basically a rebranded mid-range Netgear home router - shipped with a cheap and nasty plug adapter, which was prone to emitting a high pitched squeal. Google will turn up plenty of forum threads on the issue if you're interested. Anyway, because it was right on the edge of my hearing range, it took me quite a while to work out what was going on. Until I did, I suffered several weeks of sleeping problems, headaches and nausea - pretty much the typical symptoms associated with cries of "wifi is harming my health". Swapped the plug adapter for a better made one and everything was fine.

Now admittedly, I've always been sensitive to these things. When I was a teenager, my dad had a job that meant that there were often medical devices (monitors, defibrilators etc) used in training course in the home. One weekend he had brought home a monitor device that emitted a particularly horrible hum and left it switched on for testing. Nobody else in the family could hear it, but it made me quite violently ill. He refused to believe that I could actually hear anything until I talked him into a blind test where I went into another room and then shouted "on" and "off" as he toggled the power on the device.

So yeah... while schools should be pushing back on the idea that wifi can harm childrens' health, I do think a lot of them might want to check whether any of their electronics are giving out high pitched squeals like that (particularly as childrens' hearing tends to be more sensitive to these ranges).

I wonder how much of the occasional health panic that springs up around wifi - and indeed other technologies - can actually be attributed to the high pitched hums that can be emitted by badly manufactured devices.

I've also read that a lot of the power line/cell tower 'cancer clusters' are explained by contractor massively (like 100x) overusing herbicides to prep the construction site; they think that no one will live there, so they dump enough poison to kill the neighborhood, literally.

That is exactly what I've been missing from every single story on the subject. There are some fanatics who believe they actually get ill to the amount of feeling it in their bodies within minutes of getting near a signal source.

A TV show once made a 30-minute documentary about one such lunatic. The one thing they didn't do, the first thing I thought of when watching the crap, was to put him into a room shielded from outside influence with a device that has its power-on button disabled, or is hidden, or what

You need to watch this: This video will hurt [youtube.com]. Be prepared for your ears and head to start hurting when you turn it on.
This video is especially relevant to the issue at large. The "Nocebo effect" is real and creates real symptoms in people. We need to understand that people who have these symptoms are not simply making them up, THEY IN FACT HAVE NAUSEA/HEADACHES/TROUBLE-BREATHING/ETC. and we need to be compassionate to that.
This is a complex issue and one that requires patience and understanding. When

Wait until those parents find out that their kids are subject to trillions and trillions of neutrinos blasting into their kid each second as they sit in class. They will be demanding that those neutrinos be turned off, and I will be there to help - by selling them my patented neutrino shield. It works because it is patented.

...these parents are going to find evidence that they are right: Turning off the Wi-Fi will, I believe, lead to statistically significantly better performance by students.*

*Not by any means directly due to the Wi-Fi, indeed, but because neither kids nor teachers will have the ability to distract themselves by browsing the web during the school day. If they turn off cell access (meaning no texting either) they'll see a similar improvement.

Back when I was a teenager, we had an underage night club. It was great. 2 kids, who ran away from home to hang out on the streets of Seattle, to go to this nightclub and do other things, had some parents who managed to get a group behind them, to shut down underage night clubs in Seattle. The kicker? They didn't even live in Seattle.

And after the nightclubs got shut down, and those 2 kids went home to new cars and other luxuries, what did all us kids who lived in Seattle have to do? Nothing, go hang on the streets.

A red light photon carries about 16000 times the energy a photon from E.M. radiation @ 2.4 GHz carries. That difference is comparable to the difference between red light and hard X rays. Light from the indicator LEDs on the router has more chance of hurting you than the waves from the antenna.